


Over Hills and Days

by Ahhuya



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Awkward Dates, Keith's Birthday Week 2017, M/M, Mentions of Other Voltron Paladins, Tiny bits of angst but mostly awkward dating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 20:58:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12465816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahhuya/pseuds/Ahhuya
Summary: There is nothing special about birthdays. At least not for Keith. They’re nothing else than other normal days. He has lived with that ever since he was a child, only opening up by the time he met Shiro. Now that Shiro is back and the team has found out where they are on the Earth calendar, it’s time for a birthday once again.





	Over Hills and Days

**Author's Note:**

> So this was written for the vldexchange on tumblr and at the same time it's my first Sheith work. I had a lot of fun writing this, even though I have to admit I had no idea what I was doing most of the time (just hope it isn't too obvious :'D)  
> Happy birthday to my boy Keith!

Keith never liked birthdays. There was no extra meaning to that one “special” day of the year. Maybe it was because he never had someone to tell him how to celebrate. His mom was never there and there were only a few birthdays Keith had before his dad disappeared from his life as well.

At the Garrison, Keith was already used to the feeling of being the ‘loner’, the odd one out. No one needed to know when he was going to be a year older. All that mattered was how old he already was, how soon he could be done with learning and join the actual expeditions to space. Birthdays weren’t special, they didn’t need to be celebrated. Keith was fine on his own, enjoying the fact that he would be another year closer to finding a place to be on the planet or away from it, in an actual unknown world. Maybe that was what had called him the most about staying in the Garrison. He didn’t stay for the people or the things he could learn. He stayed for the chance of getting away from all that. There wasn’t anything for him on Earth, was there? So perhaps the stars had something for him that Earth couldn’t give.

The only positive thing Earth had been able to give to him was Shiro. Who soon enough became the only reason to even enjoy Earth. There was one person who tried to understand him, one person who actually cared and gave him a feeling he belonged somewhere. It was the first time Keith started to care about things, under which the day of becoming a year older. It was never something extremely special, but connections with Shiro ended in extra time in the simulator as a gift or food that wasn’t created in the horrors of the Garrison’s kitchen. It was all Keith had needed in those moments. For once, he had a place on Earth.

That disappeared again when Shiro was dead in space. Every connection he had felt to Earth or even space was gone.  He stopped caring again, stopped counting the days since the Kerberos mission had “crashed”, stopped realizing how much time passed. He found himself occupied with other things, the cliffs in the desert proving themselves interesting enough. When Shiro came back again, there was no need to care about days anymore. His connection to Earth was officially gone when he found his place with the red lion, the time measure in space too different to keep track of passing days.

That was until Lance had started screaming more than usual and pressed his phone in the face of everyone present on the castle. After ages of being stuck to ‘quintents’ and ‘vargas’, he had gotten the phone back onto an Earth calendar again. It was the end of October, meaning they had spent almost a year in space already. The end of October meant more however. He doubted anyone in the castle would care, they wouldn’t know the extra meaning to image of ‘Oct. 22’ on Lance’s screen. They wouldn’t know what was happening on the 23rd, although Keith already made up to himself that nothing was going to happen. It was only a day of turning older. He would spend his birthday on the ship, alone, without bothering the others with it. It would be just a normal day, no one would care, not even Keith himself. He wanted to assure himself that Shiro had forgotten about the date as well.

**…**

There was nothing special about the day passing and the next day coming by. Lance made the same comments as usual during breakfast and Pidge was glued to her computer as always. The food goo was the same as it had been the day before and that was enough proof for Keith that no one knew it was his birthday. If Hunk had known, he would have gotten out of bed earlier to cook an extravagant birthday breakfast Keith knew he couldn’t finish completely. The thought of telling the others came to his mind, but was dismissed quickly. They had already needed to hear Lance’s cries about missing his birthday earlier and no doubt the others had a similar situation. His own birthday didn’t need a celebration when the others didn’t have one for their own. And, as Keith told himself, there was nothing special about the day.

The morning was filled with teambuilding. With slight difficulty he had his mind form the red lion, hoping that no one noticed the waver in his thought as the idea of home came to him. He was glad that Shiro allowed breaks, meaning there was a moment where he could be alone. He didn’t know why, but he preferred the calmness of his own room. The place was mostly empty, most likely the tidiest out of all rooms if he had to compare it to the sight he had gotten of Pidge’s and Lance’s. It wasn’t like the shack in the desert, anything he kept here would only give him a connection to the place. He didn’t need that. The castle was home, but it was never a true _home_. He faced the wall, soft blue light illuminating the white metal of the ship. He didn’t mind staying around the others, but time alone on this day was definitely better. He could be alone with his thoughts, a thing he needed especially today. It was only one new year in his life, another year to find who he really was. The previous year had done more to that than the others had done, but it wasn’t enough.

The panel next to his door blinked, showing that someone wanted to enter the room. Keith didn’t feel the need to keep the door locked, neither did he have the energy to tell whoever was waiting for him to stay away.

When the door opened, Keith had already expected it to be Shiro. He and Lance were the only ones who tended to enter at random times, Keith preferring Shiro’s visits as they didn’t end in false accusations of ‘stealing time on the Gameflux’. What Keith didn’t expect was a Shiro with a plate of food goo, the green substance bouncing around as two candles stood in it.

“It was the closest I could get that looked like a birthday cake without alerting Hunk of anything.” Shiro said as he noticed Keith’s stare at the plate. “Had to use the excuse of an in-between-training snack. It probably made the others just as suspicious as anything, but it’s something.”

“It sure is something.” Keith acknowledged. He tilted his head to the bed, motioning Shiro to sit down next to him. The gesture was easily answered, Shiro sitting down, the plate of food goo bouncing in the movement.

“Happy Birthday, Keith.” Shiro said as he offered the celebrational goo at him.

“It’s nothing special.” Keith sighed before he smiled at Shiro and took the plate from his hands. The goo rested in his lap, the lights of the candles dancing around before his eyes. There was a hand on his shoulder, a reassuring grip.

“Don’t say that. It’s worth the celebration.” Shiro told him, his eyes twinkling with concern and compassion.

“It probably is when you only have a birthday every four years.”

“You know I also celebrate it every year that I’m able to.” _Able to_ , those words weren’t meant to have a big impact, but Keith couldn’t help but to feel there was a reference to the year he had already lost.

“I know… Those parties you held at the Garrison used to be quite disastrous.” He tried to smile, he really tried.

Shiro laughed. Iverson had never been too happy with the parties as they resulted in the worst group of students the next day, either sleep deprived or hungover (or worse, both).

“Let’s go out.” Shiro said in an attempt to break the awkwardness that had come up between them.

“Don’t we have another training session in an hour?” Keith asked. The idea of going out seemed to come out of nowhere, especially when Shiro would never miss a training session.

“I asked Allura to give us some training time alone.” Shiro replied, a soft smile forming on his face, “Told her I wanted to see you work on your lion’s control more. She will take care of the rest of the team.”

Keith laughed as he thought about the horrors that were awaiting the other paladins. Allura was a strong woman, but sometimes she was a bit _too_ strong when it came to training. “And you fixed all of this in one day?”

“I already missed out on your previous birthday, I had to make up somehow.”

There were already so many missed birthdays. What made Keith’s so special, he didn’t know, but the gesture, just the pure gesture of Shiro being there for it made it much better.

**…**

Keith didn’t question Shiro’s decision to land his lion on a nearby planet. Its brown, dried-up ground stretched on for miles, leaving a gaping landscape behind, cloaked in the darkness of night. There was nothing special to the place, scanners not showing any intelligent lifeforms. The black lion landed near the edge of a cliff, the red lion following him close, landing only a few meters away. Black didn’t move for more than just letting Shiro out onto the sandy ground. Keith didn’t hesitate and followed the example, soon facing Shiro again.

“This is your idea of a birthday celebration?” Keith asked, looking over the dry and abandoned planet.

“I guess,” Shiro laughed, as he took off his helmet and looked at the dark sky, “We flew by this planet during one of our last training sessions, it reminded me of the desert behind the Garrison and Coran said the sunrise is beautiful here.”

Looking over the cliff side, Keith could see what Shiro meant. The canyon was exactly like the desert, the only thing missing being the shack he used to call home. Even if it had never been a real home, not after he had been left alone there, the sight of a desert carried some nostalgia with it. The only difference was that Earth didn’t show three giant planets in the sky, but in the moment, it didn’t matter.

“Watching a sunrise in the middle of the day, sounds romantic.” Keith laughed as he walked to the edge of the cliff and sat down, his feet hanging down in the deep.

“The cycles of this planet are different than the castle time. So yes, we’re doing a sunrise in the middle of the day.” Shiro sat down next to him.

“You know you have a lot to make up for with the last time we watched a sunrise together.” By the look on Shiro’s face, Keith understood he had no idea what he was talking about, “When you almost died after the wormhole crash. Not the best sunrise I’ve ever seen.” Sure the sight of the green lion and the castle within that sunrise had made it a lot better, but it was a sunrise Keith would rather forget.

“Right…” Shiro’s voice was softer than it had been before, “that time…”

They stopped talking at the moment, sitting down together at the edge of the cliff, waiting for the planet’s sun to rise.

“I know you never had a thing with birthdays.” Shiro broke the silence once again, “That was obvious enough at the Garrison already. But it’s the one time in the year we actually have something to celebrate together. You mean a lot to me Keith, please know that.” There was a soft hesitation before Shiro moved closer and wrapped his left arm around his shoulder. The paladin armor was meant to block out most of the surroundings, but Keith wanted to believe he could feel Shiro’s skin through it. His touch was tender, guiding Keith closer in an embrace. “I will always need you.”

Keith felt his shoulders relax, coming to ease against Shiro’s chest.  “I need you too even though you disappear all the time.”

“I’m here right now, for you to share this moment.” It was only this moment to share, but just that was more than Keith could have asked for. One moment without fighting, without having to worry about the others running up to them and separating them once again, without Shiro disappearing and returning to him almost dying. This moment was fine, being together, alone, with a sunrise to keep them company.

As the first rays of the sun started to crawl over the rocks, Keith found himself speechless. He had watched the sun rise on Earth many times before. There were nights where he had been unable to sleep, his dreams tiring him only more. At those times, as he occupied himself with looking for strange energy sources in the desert, he would stand in the sand and watch the rays of sun move over the surrounding cliffs.

The sunrise on Earth was beautiful, but nothing special after seeing it so many times. But he had to give it to Coran that this planet had something special. The sky colored a soft orange at first as the sun came up to the horizon. The stray clouds in the dusty air soon took over that color before changing into a combination of yellow and pink. The planets in the sky illuminated with a surrounding pink circle. The view stayed in the air for another varga, a varga Keith didn’t feel flying past.

He didn’t want to move from that spot. Shiro’s protective hold, the calm nature of the planet… the fact that they were able to stay together like this. Keith didn’t especially like birthdays, but he loved days that could make him feel more special and loved.

“We should probably head back soon. I doubt Allura will allow us to be gone for too long.”

“In case the Galra attack? They haven’t been seen in this system, I thought we would get at least a full day off.”

“Try telling that to Allura. It’s better to stay on her good side.” There was no arguing with that. If they were to return late, then Shiro would be the one to blame for it.

“You’re right,” Keith sighed. He didn’t want to leave Shiro’s hold yet, “we should go back before she has the others come get us.”

**…**

He hadn’t wanted to leave the planet, but as much as it had reminded him of home, the castle was more of a home than Earth had ever been to him.

Before they entered the lions to travel back, Shiro approached Keith one more time. In his right hand was a rock.

“I noticed you keep nothing else but your knife around you, but take this.” Shiro said as he handed over the rock. “It’s much like you.”

The rock was broken, the inside showing on one side. There, a red crystal, tainted black and purple on the top was hiding.

“It’s pretty.” Keith admitted.

“I know you think it’s a stupid idea,” Shiro said, placing his hands on his waist, “but with us being who knows how far away in space, you should find some meaning in physical objects. Think of me when you see this one.” _In case I’m not around._

“I will.” _But you can’t disappear another time while I’m here._

They parted once again to get to their lions, the castle already floating near the planet as a sign that their time together was up.

**…**

Keith couldn’t care less about landing Red back in the hangar again. He found himself in Black’s hangar all too soon, running into Shiro’s arms one more time.

“Thank you for this, Shiro.” Keith said as he buried his head deeper in Shiro’s shoulder. “It was the best birthday I could ask for.”

“About that-“

“It was your _BIRTHDAY?_ ” Keith looked up at the origin of sudden voice. The other paladins had assembled in the hangar and Lance stood in front of the group, his face showing a mix of surprise and confusion.

“It’s nothing special.” Keith tried to reason as he leaned back a little, moving out of the initial hug.

“Oh no,” Lance started, immediately backed up by Hunk, “we’re celebrating this tonight.”

“I’m sure we have enough ingredients left to make a cake, or at least some celebrational milkshakes from Kaltenecker.” Hunk added. “I’ll work on them immediately.”

Before Keith could protest, Hunk was running off to the kitchen. Pidge followed soon after, while Lance refused to leave them alone again in case Shiro found a new plan to get Keith away from the castle.

“It seems there is no way of staying away from celebrations after all.” Shiro laughed when Lance had finally let them go to the lounge (under his supervision of course).

At the sight of everyone sitting around with a makeshift cake and milkshakes, Keith smiled softly. “It’s fine. I already had a great day with you.” He didn’t mind the extra party now. The time on the planet had made the day special on its own.

Maybe he didn’t hate birthdays after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on Tumblr @aulra


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